The First Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Luis Vaello Madero did not have to repay $28 thousand in Supplemental Security Income.
- Melissa Correa Velázquez, EL VOCERO 05/09/2020
The U.S. Department of Justice asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the First Circuit Court of Appeals that determined that Luis Vaello Madero does not have to return the $28,000 in Supplemental Security Income (SIS) benefits from Social Security after he moved from New York to Puerto Rico, where U.S. citizens do not receive benefits from that plan.
"The importance of the question presented underscores the need for this Court's review. SSI is an important federal program and its extension to Puerto Rico would have significant consequences. According to one estimate cited by the Court of Appeals, extending SSI to Puerto Rico could apply to more than 300,000 Puerto Rican residents each month...The Social Security Administration estimates that extending SSI to Puerto Rico would cost approximately $23 billion over the next ten years," reads the motion filed by the federal Department of Justice.
They state that SS estimates that extending the SSI program to other territories beyond Puerto Rico would cost another $700 million over the next ten years.
The First Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the order of Puerto Rico District Judge Gustavo Gelpí, who concluded that Vaello Madero did not have to repay the money.
In his order Gelpí noted that Article IV of the (U.S.) Constitution gives Congress the power to enact rules and regulations in the United States.
"However, this clause is not a carte blanche for Congress to extinguish and turn on at its convenience the constitutional rights of Due Process and Equal Protection that citizens by birth move from the states to Puerto Rico," Gelpí's order states.
It argues that Congress cannot disparage American citizens living in Puerto Rico with the stigma of a citizenship inferior to that of their fellow citizens throughout the United States.
"To hold otherwise would be to be in conflict with the sacrosanct principle contained in the Declaration of Independence that All Men are Created Equal," he says.
"To classify a group of the nation's poorest and neediest U.S. citizens as second class simply because they reside in Puerto Rico is not, under any circumstances, rational," the order adds.